Cheyenne N. Chambers | Photo by David Colwell
When Cheyenne N. Chambers was a Case Western Reserve undergraduate, she secured a summer externship with the top federal judge in Cleveland— the kind of opportunity typically reserved for law students. “It was extraordinary,” recalled Laura Tartakoff, JD (LAW ’90), a senior instructor in the Department of Political Science, who taught Chambers.
Talent and tenacity led to the position with U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr.; a College of Arts and Sciences grant made it possible.
Chambers said she took notes during hearings and jury trials, summarized lawyers’ briefs and by the end of the summer even drafted an opinion. “It was a life-changing moment, honestly,” said Chambers, JD (CWR ’11, GRS ’11, history). “I give Judge Oliver so much credit for where I am today. It was an amazing experience.”
She has since blazed a professional path and is now a senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
As an undergraduate, Chambers knew she wanted to someday join the federal bench, so she wrote to every federal judge in the northern Ohio region about a summer spot.
“I was not taking no for an answer,” she said. It was 2010, the same year Oliver, JD (GRS ’74, political science), became chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
Chambers also applied for a Wellman Hill Political Science Internship Grant to make the experience financially possible.
Established by Elizabeth Hill, JD (CWR ’97; GRS ’97, political science), and named for her grandfather, the program provides support for CWRU political science majors taking unpaid summer jobs in public service.
“It enables them to take the kind of jobs that will help them get into public service fields later,” said Hill, a judge in California’s San Mateo County Superior Court, whose first summer job in college was as a cashier at a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Chambers later graduated from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, clerked for a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and became a civil rights attorney at a prominent Charlotte, North Carolina, law firm.
At 35, she works in the Justice Department’s Employment Litigation Section, which enforces both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994. The first protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination and the second does the same for military service members and veterans.
Chambers is also a donor and mentor. In 2015, just a year after graduating from law school, she established a small scholarship for members of the the Black Law Students Association at the Moritz College to show gratitude and create and mentor a network of scholars at a time when roughly just 5% of lawyers in the United States are Black.
“Some people want to be super financially ready before starting this type of task,” Chambers said. “But I thought … ‘Let’s start now, and every year I’ll increase the award for the scholarship.’” And that’s what she’s been doing.
Chambers still aims to become a federal appellate judge.
“In many ways, Case [Western Reserve] laid the foundation for me to excel,” she said. “It built this tenacity that I still carry with me as a litigator.
“We Spartans all have this grit about us,” she added. “It was just instilled in us.”